Male or Female - Do You Really Know Who You Are?

By Dr. Jeri Fink

Who's who in our high-tech world?

Gender has always been one of the simplest things to define in human culture.

Boys will be boys - and a girl is most definitely a girl. After all, it's all spelled out in pink and blue. Right?

Try again. Take a good, long look around your world. Gender is no longer that simple. The color yellow defines us more these days, along with unisex clothing and weight training. Men do "women's work" and women do "men's work" - and no one thinks very much about it any more. What was once so obvious is now blurred - even confusing.

Don't agree? The gender icons of yesterday's Hollywood - like Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne have been replaced by cross-dressers like Dennis Rodman and Dame Edna. Female cropped hair is as common as men with ponytails while modern cowboys sport high-fashion designer clothing and female hard hats are seen at most construction sites. Raised social consciousness concerning homosexuality, bisexuality, and transexuality has moved us even further from the fixed gender of the past. Nowadays men can be "mothers" and women can be family breadwinners.

Nowhere is this blurring of gender more apparent than online - where men can be women, women can be men, men can be women playing men and women can be men playing women. Remember the now classic saying, "on the internet no one knows you're a dog?" That goes for gender, too. No one ever has to know who you are. And if you believe that scanned images on the internet - or video conferencing - will change everything, think again. How do you know that the photo or image you're talking to online really belongs to the person at the keyboard? Gender deception is ridiculously easy. And with old definitions so mixed up, it also becomes socially acceptable.

Scientists tell us that what we once believed was a clear separation looks very different from a genetic point of view. Sure, the genetic notations of XX as female and XY as male still stand. Of course that suggests the XX female is the only combination that approaches "pure" gender. Let's take it a step further. Now we know about all those confusing chromosomal options - like X (Turner's Syndrome), XXY (Klinefelter's Syndrome), and excesses of chromosomes like XXX and XYY. From a psychological point of view, we read about men who feel like they're women trapped in men's bodies and women who feel like men in their bodies. While sex change operations are not common - they're certainly something all of us know about.

Put the pieces together and you'll land in a place that most people have a tough time accepting: there's no such think as pure female and pure male. Gender is a relative statement about who you are, reflecting physical, psychological, and cultural features. With our time spent increasingly in high tech virtual spaces, it becomes more and more flexible, enabling us to fantasize, play, and role-model in a range of genders.

Sounds like bizarre, science-fiction fluff? Get used to it. That's where we come from these days. Our technology has created some very strange new worlds. With a little help from computers, we can do and be whatever we want. And it makes things very complicated. So when you're fed up with a girlfriend or a wife, a boyfriend or a spouse, consider this: you might be in their virtual shoes someday. Don't be so judgmental about what they say, do, or like. Whether it's football or jewelry, puppies or muscle cars, who likes what is increasingly decided inside - not by the stuff on your body. Maybe that's not so bad. After all, some things haven't changed - at least for now. Most men still love action movies while most women crave love stories. One cross-cultural study of over ten thousand people in thirty-three countries located on six continents and five islands, suggests that there are some very basic differences. When men look for a mate they show off their stuff in fancy cars, high status, money, expensive dates, and gifts. When women look for a man they use make-up, clothing, jewelry and sex appeal. Men fight for dominance while women fight to protect their children. Which, by the way, is exactly how the gorillas behave.